A production engineer at an Apopka, Florida church has been charged with eight counts of sexual battery on a 14-year-old girl with mental disabilities after a 911 call phoned in while he was caught in the act led police to take him into custody, WESH reports.

Joseph Averitt, 33, is facing 11 charges overall for molesting the young girl inside the New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka where he worked, as well as in the apartment he shared with his wife and child,and in his car while his infant son sat in the backseat crying.

According to the girl, who has a documented IQ of 70, Averitt had molested her several times previously before he was caught.

Averitt admitted to having sex with the victim at the church on several occasions, but said he never had sex with the victim outside the church, police documents state.

After firing Averitt on Wednesday, the church issued a statement saying, ” We are shocked and saddened by these allegations that have been made against one of our former employees. We are in prayer for all involved and trust that healing and truth prevail.”

According to his Facebook page, Averitt has only been married for two years.

Bond was set at $51,500 and Averitt was warned by the judge to stay away from the victim.

A former Pennsylvania pastor has been sentenced to up to 15 years in state prison for sexually molesting a 9-year-old while plying the boy with drugs, WNEP reports.

Norman (Ted) Faux started abusing the child at age 9 and continued to do so for years,even though Faux was HIV-positive, according to reports. During most of that time, he was pastor at Lake Ariel United Methodist Church.

“The heinous acts that he’s committed, he needs to be incarcerated so that others can be protected,” Reverend Marian Hartman, who oversees United Methodist Church’s Susquehanna Conference including Lake Ariel, told WNEP.

The boy, now a young adult, told police the abuse continued up until Faux was arrested last year, according to CitizensVoice. It was discovered by his girlfriend, who checked his cell phone and found an obscene message from Faux in which he asked to perform oral sex on the victim.

It happened so frequently he was unable to tell police the number of times he was abused, according to CitizensVoice.

Faux had been forced to resign as minister for the church in 2011 when accused of molestation. Church officials held an internal trial. They told WNEP they had reported this case to authorities but the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution had already passed.

A production engineer at an Apopka, Florida church has been charged with eight counts of sexual battery on a 14-year-old girl with mental disabilities after a 911 call phoned in while he was caught in the act led police to take him into custody, WESH reports.

Joseph Averitt, 33, is facing 11 charges overall for molesting the young girl inside the New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka where he worked, as well as in the apartment he shared with his wife and child,and in his car while his infant son sat in the backseat crying.

According to the girl, who has a documented IQ of 70, Averitt had molested her several times previously before he was caught.

Averitt admitted to having sex with the victim at the church on several occasions, but said he never had sex with the victim outside the church, police documents state.

After firing Averitt on Wednesday, the church issued a statement saying, ” We are shocked and saddened by these allegations that have been made against one of our former employees. We are in prayer for all involved and trust that healing and truth prevail.”

According to his Facebook page, Averitt has only been married for two years.

Bond was set at $51,500 and Averitt was warned by the judge to stay away from the victim.

Police in Odessa, Texas were called out this week after a woman spotted a couple performing what appeared to be an exorcism on a woman lying on the ground in a Texas park, MyHighPlains.com reports.

“They start getting louder and louder and louder, she was on the ground and they were standing over her with hands on her and screaming Satan I demand that you depart and it went on and on and on, but it was very bizarre!” said one bystander who noticed the religious ritual being performed in public at Memorial Gardens Park.

Police who arrived at the scene said their hands were tied because exorcisms are not against the law and no one was injured.

According to witnesses, the three people were sitting on a park bench speaking before the exorcism commenced.

One woman, who reads her Bible in the park, said the three got right into it with few formalities beforehand, disrupting her from her daily ritual.

“No bible was read, no prayer, because it got a little too crazy.. ?” she said before adding, “Jesus can heal anybody but it’s just not something you expect to see on the duckpond but I’m glad to know that everybody’s okay.”

A production engineer at an Apopka, Florida church has been charged with eight counts of sexual battery on a 14-year-old girl with mental disabilities after a 911 call phoned in while he was caught in the act led police to take him into custody, WESH reports.

Joseph Averitt, 33, is facing 11 charges overall for molesting the young girl inside the New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka where he worked, as well as in the apartment he shared with his wife and child,and in his car while his infant son sat in the backseat crying.

According to the girl, who has a documented IQ of 70, Averitt had molested her several times previously before he was caught.

Averitt admitted to having sex with the victim at the church on several occasions, but said he never had sex with the victim outside the church, police documents state.

After firing Averitt on Wednesday, the church issued a statement saying, ” We are shocked and saddened by these allegations that have been made against one of our former employees. We are in prayer for all involved and trust that healing and truth prevail.”

According to his Facebook page, Averitt has only been married for two years.

Bond was set at $51,500 and Averitt was warned by the judge to stay away from the victim.

A Valparaiso, Indiana man has been charged with two counts of rape and three counts of sexual battery after he allegedly sexually assaulted multiple mentally disabled women after leading them in Bible study.

According to the Chicago Tribune, 23-year-old Thomas Cooperider of Liberty Bible Church in Chesterton reportedly committed the acts between November 2014 and March of 2015 on church grounds.

In a May 8 interview with the Porter County Sheriff’s Department, Cooperider — who told police that he has been accepted to the law program at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University — began his statement by stating, “Everything that did happen was consensual between adults.”

However, the Times of Northwest Indiana reported that all of the women have varying degrees of mental disability, one of whom has a functioning IQ of 57.

The three women’s guardians contacted church officials, who in turn went to the police. All three of the victims say that Cooperider led them to secluded areas of the church and touched them without their permission.

Cooperider was barred from church property as of May 4 after the victims’ guardians met with police.

John Duey, Director of Operations for Liberty Bible Church, told the Tribune via email that Cooperider is merely a church volunteer and holds no position of authority in the church.

Cooperider first began to attend services at Liberty Church with his parents as a high schooler. His parents stopped attending, Duey said, but Cooperider “still participated in events and programs here.”

The Tribune said that footage obtained from the church’s surveillance cameras matched the victims’ testimonies.

If convicted, Cooperider could face up to 16 years in prison on each of the two felony rape charges and up to two years and six months on each of the three felony sexual battery charges against him.

You should attend a service there sometime, Quite remarkable, the father and myself often sit back and listen to the songs of praise emanating. They have a 20,000 watt Valve amplifier you know, crystal clear sound

A lawsuit recently filed against a teacher at Forest Park Elementary School in Indiana alleged that a 7-year-old student was “banished” from sitting with other students at lunch after he revealed that he did not believe in God.

According to the lawsuit obtained by The Washington Post, second grade teacher Michelle Myer interrogated the student, who was identified with the initials A.B., about his religious beliefs after he told his classmates on the playground that he did not go to church because he did not believe in God.

As a result, the child was ordered to sit by himself during lunch for a three-day period.

“The defendant’s actions caused great distress to A.B. and resulted in the child being ostracized by his peers past the three-day ‘banishment.'”

“Ms. Meyer asked A.B. if he had told the girl that he did not believe in God and A.B. said he had and asked what he had done wrong,” the lawsuit explained. “Ms. Meyer asked A.B. if he went to church, whether his family went to church, and whether his mother knew how he felt about God… She also asked A.B. if he believed that maybe God exists.”

Several days later, Meyer sent A.B. to talk to another adult at the school, who “reinforced his feeling that he had done something very wrong,” the lawsuit said.

“On the day of the incident and for an additional two days thereafter, Ms. Meyer required that A.B. sit by himself during lunch and told him he should not talk to the other students and stated that this was because he had offended them. This served to reinforce A.B.’s feeling that he had committed some transgression that justified his exclusion.”

“A.B. came home from school on multiple occasions crying saying that he knows that everyone at school – teachers and students – hate him,” the suit continued. “Even now A.B. remains anxious and fearful about school, which is completely contrary to how he felt before this incident.”

The lawsuit is seeking damages and attorneys’ fees.

In a statement, the school district suggested that the teacher had been wrong to single out the child.

Atlanta “prosperity gospel” minister and megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar briefly addressed his desire for a multimillion-dollar Gulfstream G650 jet over the weekend, saying people who criticized him didn’t have a godly worldview.

“See, don’t get upset when the world says stuff and talks about stuff, and all that. They’re just looking through the wrong lens, they don’t understand,” Creflo said in a sermon uploaded to his ministry’s website.

“‘What does a preacher need with an airplane?’ They don’t know,” the preacher added. “They’ll never know because they’re not looking through the Word. They will never know, never never know.”

Creflo made national news after asking his followers to donate towards the purchase of a $65 million dollar Gulfstream G650 jet to replace his older airplane. He pulled his fundraising appeal after a backlash, but his ministry later announced they were still seeking the luxury private jet, claiming it was a necessity for its global outreach.

During his sermon, he also commented on faith healing.

‘Well, I don’t believe you can just be healed without medicine.’ They don’t know because they are looking through the wrong lens. They’ll never never know.”

Catholic priest convicted of groping a woman on a U.S. airline flight was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday after the victim testified that she was still traumatized by the ordeal, prosecutors said.

Marcelo De Jesumaria, 46, was also sentenced to six months of home confinement by a federal judge who ordered him to register as a sex offender, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors say that the incident took place on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Aug. 17, 2014 when De Jesumaria moved from his assigned seat to the last row of the aircraft, telling a flight attendant he wanted to “sit next to his wife.”

The victim, who had been sleeping, told authorities that she awoke to find De Jesumaria touching the top of her leg and then wrap his arm around her body to grab her breast.

When De Jesumaria relaxed his grip, the woman got up to visit the plane’s restroom, then used a call button to summon a flight attendant and report that De Jesumaria had been touching her inappropriately.

De Jesumaria, who was moved by the flight crew to the front of the plane, was met by law enforcement when the flight landed at Los Angeles International Airport.

During the sentencing hearing the victim testified that she still felt “fear, frustration and anxiety” over the incident and suffers because she must regularly travel on airplanes for her job, Mrozek said.

In court papers filed before the sentencing, prosecutors said De Jesumaria provided a number of “bizarre explanations” for his conduct and blamed the victim.

De Jesumaria testified that he considered his touching of the victim consensual because she did not reject them and interpreted her silence, because she was asleep, as “coyness.”

A U.S. District Court jury convicted De Jesumaria in May of abusive sexual contact.

Parents in North Texas want to know why a pastor with pending charges of child rape and sodomy in Alabama has been hired by the First Baptist Church of Bedford.

According to Alabama court documents obtained by KDFW, Kyle Adcock faces charges for 29 counts of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl while he was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church between 2010 and 2012.

Julie Brooks and Jennifer Fawks told KDFW that they were concerned after learning that Adcock had been hired as a music minister because their children take classes at First Baptist Church during the week.

“Kids trust ministers,” Brooks explained. “And so if they are approached by someone that works in the church, you would trust them. You would have no reason not to.”

First Baptist Church Pastor Steve Knott insisted to KDFW that the church usually performed background checks on employees, but said that Adcock was only working as a temporary employee in the music ministry. Knott also argued that Adcock had not yet been convicted of a crime.

A Google search for Kyle Adcock immediately returns dozens of photos and news stories resulting from his arrest last year.

Adcock’s mother had testified at the time that there was a job waiting for her son in Texas if the court agreed to release him on bail.

But Brooks and Fawks said that Adcock should not have been hired until he was cleared of the charges.

“Until that has been proven one way or the other, you are not put back in a situation where this problem started from,” Brooks remarked.

There are some people that honestly deserve to be tortured every day for the rest of their lives, and medically kept alive for as long as possible to endure as much torture possible

Quote

An Alabama pastor of a conservative congregation is being accused of raping a 9-year-old girl on her father’s grave, AL.com reports.

Mack Charles Andrews, a pastor at the heavily conservative United Pentecostal Church is accused of raping “Jane,” a pseudonym to conceal the identity of the victim, along with multiple other minors. Andrews allegedly started “grooming” her for sexual abuse when she was only 7.

Jane described how Andrews allegedly terrorized her.

“He told me if I didn’t say anything, he would come back and put flowers on the grave,” she told AL.com. “If I did, he said demons would come and get me from my bed.”

Jane accuses Andrews of raping her with multiple objects, including drumsticks, a letter opener, pens, a flashlight and a figurine, in a warrant obtained by AL.com. She says it was Andrews’ way of “preparing” her for sexual abuse. She says the church Andrews led was “like a cult” where girls weren’t allowed to wear make-up and had to wear floor-length skirts.

Andrews is being held on $500,000 bond and was arraigned on Tuesday. He was arrested in 2013 on counts of sexual torture, rape, sexual abuse, attempted rape and sodomy, and the county prosecutor said he is aware of nine victims who were allegedly violated by Andrews in the ’80s and ’90s.

The abuse allegedly went on for years. Jane told authorities hers lasted 5 years until she left the church. She says it resulted in a painful life in which she “made a lot of wrong decisions” and spent time in jail.

“He was the leader, and we were the sacrifices,” Jane said, according to AL.com. “I think there were a lot of people who were ashamed to come forward.”

On Monday, the Blount County Board of Commissioners will consider a resolution asking God to spare their region from “His coming wrath” because the “lawless judiciary” of the U.S. is forcing them recognize same-sex marriages.

The proposal has been put forth by Commissioner Karen Miller and is listed on the docket as “Resolution condemning judicial tyranny and petitioning God’s mercy. (Resolution 15-10-006)”

The resolution begins: “Whereas, the Governor, Attorney General, and ALL WE Blount County Legislators have sworn an oath consistent with the moral Law of God (“So Help Me God”) to uphold the Constitution of Tennessee and the Constitution of the United States; and Whereas, the fulfillment of this oath, in the American tradition, may not be read to contradict the written Constitution, Justice, Reason and higher Natural Law…” before turning to Commissioner Miller’s grievances.

“Federal judges have once again usurped powers not delegated to them, and have violated Reason, the Rule of Law and Natural Law by purporting to strike down State laws and acts of the People recognizing and protecting Natural Marriage,” it states by way of explaining that Miller believes the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds by legalizing same-sex marriage.

Miller’s resolution calls upon “all of the Officers of the State of Tennessee, the Governor, the Attorney General, and the members of the Tennessee Legislature,” to join the commission in saving “natural marriage,” and defending “the the Moral Standards of Tennessee.”

Fearing that may be too little too late, the passed resolution would also beseech God to not destroy Blount County — like He did Sodom and Gomorrah — for the sins of America.

“WE adopt this Resolution before God that He pass us by in His Coming Wrath and not destroy our County as He did Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities. As the Passover Lamb was a means of salvation to the ancient Children of Israel, so we stand upon the safety of the Lamb of God to save us, ” the resolution reads. “WE adopt this Resolution begging His favor in light of the fact that we have been forced to comply and recognize that the State of Tennessee, like so many other God-fearing States, MAY have fallen prey to a lawless judiciary in legalizing what God and the Bible expressly forbids.”

Presumably God will hold off His wrath until the resolution can be considered as it is listed as seventh on the docket — right after the board takes up compensation levels for Blount County School Board Members.

The anti-LGBT Westboro Baptist Church threatened to mount a protest at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, arguing that meteorologists are “stealing God’s glory,” Gawker reported.

“Note to weather reporting rebels, nothing happens in this earth without the direct command of God,” the group said in a statement.

The church also released a statement on Twitter saying that it would demonstrate against the agency on Thursday, “to remind them that ONLY by God’s mercy and power do you gather intelligence on His weather. The day comes when all weather rules, as you know them, will be gone. America crossed the Rubicon when, by force of law, you permitted same-sex marriage.”

The statement, which also makes reference to “your false goddess, Mother Nature,” can be seen below:

KFOR-TV reported that the protest was announced to coincide with the annual Society of Environmental Journalists conference, which will be held at the University of Oklahoma. The university currently houses the center’s facilities, as well as those of the Oklahoma City branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the NWS’ Storm Prediction Center.

Anti-abortion Christian protesters in Norfolk, Virginia complained after a local clinic drowned out their attempt to harangue patients by playing audio from a popular science blogger’s book promoting atheism, Christian News reported.

“It’s opposition to the gospel,” said one demonstrator Jason Sleichter of the tactics used by Tidewater Women’s and LGBT Primary Care.

Video shot outside the clinic shows a speaker outside the building blaring audio from an audiobook for The Happy Atheist, published in 2013 by PZ Myers.

“We are apes and the descendants of apes,” the speaker says. “We’re the descendants of rat-like primates, who were the children of reptiles, who were the spawn of amphibians, who were the terrestrial progeny of fish, who came from worms, who were assembled from single-cell microorganisms, who were the products of chemistry. Your daddy was a film of chemical slime on a Hadean rock and he didn’t care about you; he was only obeying the laws of thermodynamics.”

Demonstrators fretted that the recording was played loudly enough to disrupt their attempts to “minister” to women seeking treatment at the clinic.

“We were telling them that their baby was made in the image of God, and what was going on that day was that God’s image was being destroyed,” said Don Karns, who shot the footage.

However, Myers stated on his blog Pharyngula that Sleichter’s group misidentified him as the speaker in the recording, when in reality it was atheism activist L. Aron Nelson, better known as Aron Ra.

“Much as I appreciate the attention and the anger of Christians, dont blare my words at women just looking for care,” Myers wrote. “It’s not appropriate and is counterproductive.”

25-year-old former beauty queen was charged in Southern California on Friday with distributing pornographic photos of a 4-year-old girl who is her relative, prosecutors said.

Meghan Breanna Alt, 25, of San Clemente was charged with one felony count of possession and control of child pornography and three felony counts of lewd acts upon a child, federal and local authorities said in a joint statement.

Alt took pictures of the girl in sexually explicit poses, then sent them to a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California in exchange for cash and gifts, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Alt was crowned Mrs. Orange County and in 2014 competed for the Mrs. California title. Those contests are aligned with the Mrs. America and Mrs. World pageants, and all of the competitions are for married women.

She was arrested in San Diego on Wednesday, officials said.

Her arrest resulted from an investigation by the Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force and other law enforcement agencies, officials said.

It was unclear what actions authorities might have taken against the Marine. A representative for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which was involved in the case, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Officials declined to be more specific about the victim in order to protect her identity, but they said the girl is related to Alt.

Authorities said they are looking for other potential victims in the case. Alt was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Irvine and San Clemente as a youth volunteer and had access to children, authorities said.

She is being held in Orange County jail on $100,000 bail and was expected to be arraigned on Friday in Orange County Superior Court. It was not immediately clear if she has obtained an attorney.

Christian website that gives advice to couples about how to live by the Bible’s “gender roles” recently advised men that they should not look at their wives’ faces during sex if she engaged in intercourse “begrudgingly.”

In a column on the BiblicalGenderRoles.com website last week, a writer going by the name Larry Solomon argued that men “should not tolerate refusal.”

According to the Christian columnist, women who did not like having sex with their husbands should “fake it until she makes it.”

But Solomon noted that coercing wives into sex did not always result in an enjoyable experience for the husband.

“You also need to realize that whether your wife knows it or not she needs to have sex too,” he opined. “If you don’t have sex with your wife at regular intervals, even sometimes when she is not in the mood but consents anyway, you will open yourself to temptation.”

“Focus your eyes on her body, not her face. Focus on the visual pleasure you receive from looking at her body and physical pleasure you receive from being inside your wife,” Solomon recommended. “You want to connect with her physically AND emotionally during sex. But your wife is the one refusing to connect with you emotionally, so you have to concentrate 100% on the physical side.”

Solomon said that men should think of unwilling wives like Medusa, the mythical Greek monster who could turn men to stone if they looked upon her face.

“I know you love your wife, most men love their wives. But sin is ugly,” the writer remarked. “Your beautiful bride’s face becomes ugly during this sinful time that she is grudgingly giving you sex as she grimaces wanting you to ‘just hurry up and get it over with’.”

“So like the men who could not look at Medusa’s face otherwise they would be killed, realize that if you look on your wife’s face when she is displaying a sinful attitude toward sex it will kill your sexual pleasure and may actually make it much more difficult for you to achieve the physical connection and release that you need,” he concluded. “Sometimes we have to work around the sinful behavior of our wives and this will be one of those times.”

In a column earlier this year, Solomon insisted that there was “no such thing as marital rape.” A wife, he said, could ask her husband to delay sex for a short period of time but the request “must be done humbly and respectfully, and always with the attitude in mind that her body does belong to her husband.”

Responding to comments from a men’s rights activist on a posting about finding enjoyment in sex with a wife who grudgingly agrees, the host of a website providing tips on proper Biblical “gender roles” agreed that keeping a woman in a constant state of fear is an appropriate way to control her actions.

Pointing to a column he wrote on “Female dread,” Rollo Tomassi explained that Christian men go about seeking sex with women all wrong by trying to “diffuse sexual anxiety and tension.” Instead, Tomassi said husbands should make their wives “unintentionally uncomfortable” in order to achieve “the rough, hard-core, make-up sex you never thought you’d have.”

Larry Solomon of Biblical Gender Roles agreed enthusiastically — albeit from a biblical perspective — writing: “So should a wife Biblically speaking have a little healthy fear or dread of her husband? Absolutely!”

According to Solomon — who agreed with Tomassi’s distaste for feminism — the Bible says that women should submit to their husbands “’as unto the Lord’ (Ephesians 5:22)”

Solomon lamented the fact that he believes that most Christian husbands fear their wives.

“Men show their wives they are either afraid to lose them (be alone) or afraid of the prospect of divorce and the financial or child custody repercussions that it may bring, ” he wrote.

Solomon suggested that Christian husbands should use what he calls the “there’s the door” method.

“So when a woman acts out in rebellion toward her husband and tries to act as if she does not need her husband or that other men would treat her better the Christian husband should tell his wife “there’s the door”. Will some women be foolish enough to walk out that door? Yes, ” he wrote. ” But the moment a man allows his wife to put him in a position of fearing her, rather than her fearing him the relationship has just changed from the design God intended it to be.”

Solomon added that there is a limit to what a husband needs to provide for his wife and that the minimums should be withdrawn if she gets out of line.

“While we are required to know our wives and talk to them, that does not mean we need to spend every bit of our free time in conversation with them. We do not need to hang on every word our wife says. While we are required to give them food, clothing and shelter – that food does not have be the fancy food she wants, that clothing does not have to be the fancy clothing she wants and that house does not have to be the fancy house she wants,” he wrote, before adding that one night of wild sex is insufficient.

“I don’t just mean she just rocks his world one night, and then he lavishes her with all these things. No – she sees that in order to get ‘some’ of her wants met she must FIRST reverence her husband outside the bedroom and she must ravish him inside the bedroom and this becomes the pattern of her behavior toward her husband, He explained. ” If either the reverence or ravishing goes down, he pulls back on these other things so she understands the correlation.”